Ocular surface changes after excimer laser phototherapeutic keratectomy1
Section snippets
Subjects and examinations
Forty-five eyes of 33 patients with superficial corneal opacities (17 men, 16 women) between 34 and 84 years of age (mean, 66.7 ± 11.9 years) underwent excimer laser PTK at Kobe Kaisei Hospital Eye Clinic from September 1998 through April 1999. The etiologic distribution of superficial corneal opacities is shown in Table 1. All patients underwent routine ophthalmic examinations, including Landolt visual acuity and funduscopy, as well as ocular surface examinations consisting of Cochet-Bonnet
Clinical features
Superficial corneal opacities could be successfully removed from the corneal visual axis in all patients. The anterior segment photographs before and 3 months after PTK in a patient with band keratopathy are shown in Figure 1A, B. Thirty-one eyes (68.9%) had more than 2 lines of Landolt corrected and 6 eyes (13.3%) had 1 line of Landolt corrected visual acuity improvement after PTK in this series. Eight eyes (17.8%) showed no change of visual acuity after PTK. Four of these eyes had dense
Discussion
Excimer lasers have been and are being extensively used in the treatment of superficial corneal pathologic conditions after initial experimental and clinical reports of successful excimer laser therapeutic lamellar keratectomy applications. Many studies undertaken to assess the corneal tissue responses after excimer laser ablation increased our knowledge about the nature and quality of corneal wound healing. However, a better understanding of the causes and the course of the ocular surface and
References (28)
- et al.
Corneal hypoesthesia
Surv Ophthalmol
(1988) Granular dystrophy of the corneaan electron microscopic study
Am J Ophthalmol
(1965)- et al.
Gelsolin immunoreactivity in corneal amyloid, wound healing, and macular and granular dystrophies
Am J Ophthalmol
(1993) - et al.
Comparison of corneal sensation following photorefractive keratectomy and laser in situ keratomileusis
J Cataract Refract Surg
(1997) - et al.
Corneal sensitivity after photorefractive keratectomy and laser in situ keratomileusis for low myopia
Am J Ophthalmol
(1999) - et al.
The glycoprotein (mucus) content of tears from normals and dry eye patients
Exp Eye Res
(1976) - et al.
Possible mechanisms for the loss of goblet cells in mucin-deficient disorders
Ophthalmology
(1984) - et al.
Surface activity determination of aqueous tear components in dry eye patients and normals
Exp Eye Res
(1977) Formation and rupture of the tear film
Exp Eye Res
(1973)- et al.
Correlation of tear lipid layer interference patterns with the diagnosis and severity of dry eye
Am J Ophthalmol
(1996)
Impression cytology in patients with keratoconjunctivitis sicca
Cytopathology
Impression cytology
Cornea
Treatment of band keratopathy by excimer laser phototherapeutic keratectomysurgical techniques and long term follow up
Br J Ophthalmol
Electron and light microscopic observations of a case of Groenouw’s nodular corneal dystrophy
Nippon Ganka Kiyo
Cited by (0)
- 1
The authors have no proprietary interest in any of the products mentioned in this paper.